This invention provides a surgical device allowing the percutaneous connection of two soft tissue areas that are ordinarily separate. This device is particularly intended for reconstruction of heart valves, especially the mitral valve, and for the treatment of any malformation of a heart septum.
In a condition known as mitral insufficiency, the mitral valve does not completely shut, and does not prevent the back-flow of blood to the left atrium from the left ventricle. Surgical repair is then necessary. In a current procedure, a sternotomy is performed. The patient is then placed under extra-corporal blood circulation while the heart is stopped, and the heart chambers are opened to gain access to the mitral valve, usually through the left atrium. Once the mitral valve is accessed, repair procedures include annuloplasty and, more recently, suturing of the free edge of the anterior leaflet to the free edge of the back leaflet where the mitral insufficiency occurs.
These procedures are complicated and require general anesthesia, sternotomy and extra-corporal blood circulation. They also require high doses of anti-coagulant therapy adding to the operative risk of a myocardial infarction and hemorrhage.